The smallest change
by HolyChicken
Summary: What if Tsunade hadn't accepted Sakura as her apprentice? But then, Sakura remembers, she already has a Sensei...Kakashi Hatake.
1. Chapter 1

1. The beginning of plot

Her hands were slick with sweat, clenched tightly into tiny, balled fists. She could feel each and every drop of sweat rolling down her forehead. In the back of her mind, she dimly noticed that she'd have to wash her hair later, and that her dress was getting a bit frayed. Sakura's mind was oddly blank for now, with no stray ideas and dreams running through her head.

Her thoughts were completely focused on the Godaime. Was she worthy of being her apprentice? Would it be enough to bring back Sasuke-kun? What would Kaka-sensei say? Oh no, she realized, she hadn't told him! What if there was a law against becoming an apprentice without permission of her teacher? What if Godaime-sama didn't take her in the first place?

Tsunade almost felt as if she were watching a carbon copy of herself before her, with the same bouts of nervousness and determination. She even balled her fists in the way that Tsunade herself often did, as if readying herself for a fight because surely, it made things easier. Inwardly, she sighed.

Her decision was made. She wouldn't watch a generation of would-be Sannin come to pass. History would not repeat itself again.

"No."

It was with that word, that Sakura's shakily constructed world came crashing down. Her eyes widened; her fists loosened; her breathing stopped for a second of too. 'No.' The word ran through her head, endlessly repeating on and _on_ and _on_; '_No_.' No, you'll never catch up with Sasuke-kun and Naruto. You'll never be strong enough, only always the last member of Team 7, always _the little girl that everyone has to protect, no, no, no…_

Sakura didn't even notice her feet walking away, the door left open behind her, nor Shizune's confused face; she walked right past the closed doors of Kiba's, Neji's, Chouji's and Shikamaru's rooms, past Naruto's empty one, past all the other patients and medics and nurses she couldhave_wouldhave__**shouldhave**_been working with.

She didn't notice Ino's confused face as she drifted by the Yamanaka flower shop, her eyes curiously blank. She didn't notice that her feet were dragging her towards a familiar training ground.

She noticed the familiar bridge beneath her feet.

Sakura slowly blinked, before realizing there was a sharp stinging sensation behind her eyes. She wasn't good enough. She wouldn't be able to bring back Sasuke-kun, nor help Naruto with his promise, she wasn't good enough. Wasn't strong enough.

Her knees failed her, and Sakura came crashing to the ground, leaning against the railing. She bit back a sob, and clenched her eyes tightly shut to prevent the tears from falling, but no matter how much effort 

she put into it, the tears were streaming down. Pathetic, she couldn't even stop her own tears…not good enough; not strong enough; can't even stop a few measly tears…

She could taste blood.

It was a new, foreign taste, metallic and coppery. She had bitten through her lip.

What type of ninja doesn't know the taste of blood, she asked herself. Ninja's are assassins, bodyguards, always involved with killing and murder.

Sakura had been a ninja for 6 months, and she didn't know the taste of blood.

What type of ninja are you? Her thoughts screamed. You haven't even killed yet! You haven't even properly fought yet! _What type of Ninja are you!_

And then you _dare_ think that you are worthy of being the Godaime's apprentice?

Sakura tried to ignore the thoughts, the whispers, and the never-ending stream of truths; dimly, she realized that she was hyperventilating.

Inner Sakura was oddly silent.

'_Not even your split-personality will speak with you…'_

Her shoulders shook, but no sounds emerged.

* * *

Someone was shaking her. Why was someone shaking her? Why was her bed so cold and hard? Sakura pried her eyes open, the exhaustion still clinging to her movements. Where was she?

Blearily, her eyes focused on the grayish blob in front of her. Slowly, the blob became hair, the green became a vest and she realized it was Kakashi-sensei. He looked concerned, she realized, why was he concerned?

Her eyes drifted to the background; the bridge. The meeting point. The bridge with 14 planks, 36 knots and 17 places where the wood had been chopped off. The bridge where she had slept after the 'n-

She wasn't good enough; she was never good enough.

The memories of yesterday came rushing back with the subtlety of a raging rhinoceros, followed quickly by the emotions. The soon becoming familiar of stinging needles behind her eyeballs returned, followed by the tightening of her throat. Her eyes became misty and unfocused, though still clear enough for her to see the alarm spreading over her sensei face.

Her sensei; not Naruto's (_he's gone_), not Sasuke's (_he left_), no ones. She was the only one left from Team 7. The weakest. The slowest.

Only Kaka-sensei was left; only he stayed. Needless to say, Kakashi got an armful of pink-haired kunouchi.

This time, her sobs were uncontrolled; the tears rushed down her cheeks, her shoulders shook as she tried to repress the whimpers that would follow; her throat was tight, leaving her with barely enough space to breathe with. She dimly noticed her sensei stiffen, before he hesitantly encircled her arms around her. If anything, it made her cry harder; she had gone looking for another teacher without informing her own! She had betrayed him, basically said that he wasn't good enough-

-just like she wasn't good enough for Godaime-sama.

And she had just brushed him aside without another thought; her own teacher, the last other member of Team 7, and she had practically tossed him aside like a rag doll. How could you? Her thoughts whispered. You say you care about your Team, but then you push him aside? Just because he's your teacher?

How could you, Sakura, how could you?

Hesitantly, Kaka-sensei's words came. "There there, Sakura, it's all going to be all right…" he trailed off, as if he didn't know what to say. One hand hesitantly reached up and began stroking her hair.

Sakura gave a small, watery smile against his shoulder. So there were things that could rattle the unshakable Kakashi after all… And he never left her. He never left Team 7.

And that's when Inner Sakura woke up. "**Hey, what're you doing moping?! So what if were no good enough for the busty bimbo!? We'll still drag Sasuke-kun's ass back all the way from Oto!" **Her words were followed by a horribly drawn caricature of Sasuke being dragged by the hair, clothed in an…an Ass-bow?!

Quickly ridding herself from that image, she mentally shoved the cackling Inner Sakura back to the depths of her mind, where she belonged.

And now without a real issue left, she slowly calmed down; before long, her shaking had stopped as well as the tears. Her eyes felt oddly dry now, and very clean and sensitive. She didn't like it.

"…Sakura? You okay now?" Kaka-sensei whispered, as if afraid a loud voice would make her break down crying again.

Sakura merely giggled against his shoulder, the image of Sakura a la Assbow returning. Smiling, she nodded against his shoulder, still clutching to him like some type of leech. She couldn't exactly help it if Kaka-sensei was a very good pillow…

There was silence for a few moments.

"…Do you plan on letting go anytime soon?"

Sakura tried to restrain the laughter that bubbled up inside of her, only shaking her head. "Sakuurrraaa…." He dragged out her name while hesitantly trying to push him away. But Sakura wasn't to be deterred, only clutching tighter and giggling a bit. It was funny, teasing Kaka-sensei; she'd have to do it again sometime.

And apparently, Kaka-sensei wasn't used to dealing with such things either, for he merely sighed, before lifting her up with him as he got to his feet.

She thankfully didn't squeak out in surprise. Instead, she only rearranged herself so that her legs and arms were tightly rapped around him, smothering her laughter into his vest. He wasn't getting her loose anytime soon!

"Sakura, I already have a reputation as a pervert-"

"-and being chronically late!" She cut in.

"-but I really don't need 'Child molester' on the list as well." He said dryly.

Sakura stiffened for a moment, before giggling. "That's your problem, Kaka-sensei!" She teased, the problem of before already long forgotten. Forgotten, but not forgiven.

Kakashi merely sighed, and tried once again, unsuccessfully I might add, to get his leech of a Student off.

* * *

"Kaka-sensei…" she whined.

After having made a deal that she's let go if he'd treat her to lunch, she stood before a tempura restaurant. Really, she didn't know what his problem was; tempura may not be the food of the gods to her like ramen was to Naruto, but that didn't mean he'd had to _glare_ at it! It wasn't going to eat him or anything…

"No." He simply answered, glaring at the restaurant like it was the evilest thing since the Kyuubi no Youko.

Sakura sighed. Well, if he was going to act childish, then so would she. Besides, she really wanted Tempura right now. "What, are you scared of some measly Tempura?"She asked.

Kakashi glared at her from the corner of his eye. Apparently, he _really_ didn't like Tempura.

"Careful, Kaka-sensei, if you reveal any more I might be able to write a paragraph about you!" She laughed, before grasping his sleeve and dragging him down the street. And seeing as he didn't pull his sleeve away, she guessed that he was really relived by the lack of Tempura.

She snorted, before finding the Ichiraku Ramen stand, where Naruto used to eat. Where they used to meet. Where they'd tried to find out what Kaka-sensei looked like without his mask, where Naruto would eat and eat and eat some more until he'd complain about how full his stomach was.

But surprisingly, the nostalgia didn't hit like before. There was not sadness, no regret.

Only knowledge that someday it would be the same again.

Smiling, Sakura ordered some water and a Miso Ramen, followed by Kakashi's own order of some Chicken Ramen. "Kaka-sensei….I've been wondering about something…" she trailed off, waiting for her Ramen to arrive. Kakashi only spared her a half-way bored glance. Twitching slightly, she hastily pushed back a wave of nervousness. "Now that Naruto and Sasuke-kun are…gone, will you still train me?"

The last bit of her sentence ended in a whisper, but she was sure Kaka-sensei heard her perfectly. Seemingly offended, he placed a hand over his heart. "Really, Sakura-chan, you thought I would abandon you to the harsh, cruel world?"

Laughing, she shook her head, before reaching for the chopsticks that had just arrived with her Miso Ramen. And then turned to stare at Kaka-sensei, as he slo-o-owly broke apart his own chopsticks. A finger reached up to lightly tug at his mask, and slowly it went down, and inch of flesh was exposed-

-before Icha Icha Paradise filled her vision with its blatant orangeness. She squawked, pushing the offending book down only to see the bowl finished and completely empty. Groaning, she turned back to her own Ramen moodily. It suddenly didn't taste so good anymore…

Sighing, Kakashi got to his feet. "Well, I have to leave now, Saku-"

She abruptly cut him off by reaching over and yanking him over by the back of his Jounin vest. "Nope, sorry Kaka-sensei," she said, slurping her Ramen."But you're paying."

"Now really, Sakura-" he began, but Sakura only glanced at the wet spot on his shoulder. She then let her green eyes slowly mist over with tears. "But Kaka-sensei…"she used her most whiny and pitiful voice possible.

Kakashi twitched. He actually twitched.

His deer-caught-in-the-headlights expression was also quite funny.

Sakura snorted a bit of soup up her throat by accident. It burned like hell, too. Scrambling, she reached for a napkin and quickly dabbled her nose with it. "Kaka-sensei, don't do that!"

"Maa, it wasn't on purpose." He said, raising his hands in an attempt to placate her. His eye crinkled up his customary smile.

And for once, Kakashi Hatake actually paid someone else's meal.

It was an almost world changing event.

* * *

They had agreed on six o'clock, so naturally Sakura arrived at seven. But even though it was an hour late, her Sensei had jet to show up. She glared futilely at a nearby rock that had somehow found its way on the bridge, and dimly imagined it being his measly, gray head.

Within moments, the rock lay a solid one hundred meters away, after dragging a lot of poor vegetation with it. And through the newly created holes, something fell down. Something very suspicious. Something that Kakashi should have thought about.

The log that he had used for a Kawamari-no-Jutsu Technique lay on the floor, a nice hole in it as well as a telltale drawing the vaguely resembled his own face.

And it was clearly in Sakura's line of sight.

Almost immediately, a large tick appeared over her head, and she began pushing back invisible sleeves, and then came the worst part.

Having never experienced Sakura and Inner Sakura's wrath combined, Kakashi wasn't prepared for the anger that would follow. Sighing, he dropped from a nearby tree. "Maa, Sakura-chan, you should save that type of energy for enemi-" His few words were quickly interrupted by a fist that came with more force than he expected, causing him to evade to the left.

But what he hadn't expected was the second fist that was sailing rapidly towards his face.

His eye widened, and he tried to evade, he really did. But the fist from earlier had latched onto his shoulder, keeping him in place, and his hands were still occupied with the Icha Icha book.

Sakura's fist connected with a sickening crunch.

But she wasn't finished there, so Kakashi quickly used the force she had used to wretch himself from her grip and jump back a few feet. And luckily for Sakura, she didn't follow.

Instead, she simply stood there, looking at her fist with shock. She had actually punched someone. Someone who wasn't Naruto. But she hadn't expected it to be so…effective. Had she really used to punch Naruto with so much force? And he never complained once. Not once.

"Now if you only used that strength on your Enemies'…" Kakashi's words abruptly wretched her back to reality, and her fist lowered. Kaka-sensei's eyebrow was raised, and one of his hands was clutching his nose. Though one thing was for sure; he certainly didn't look quite as bored as before.

Sakura quickly recovered, and a small smirk stretched across her lips. It was a foreign sensation. "Really, Sensei, you should always look underneath the underneath!"

If anything, Kakashi's eye seemed to express exactly how funny he found _that_ statement.

* * *

A/N: Well, this is going to fun. Now to see if I can make a decent romance out of this…though only when Sakura's a bit older. Or do you prefer her to be at this age? Though that might be just my hormones….Betcha THIS is going to shock Naruto when he comes back…

So, how'd you all like my interpretation of Sakura's character? Or my writing style for this fic? It constantly seems to change per story…really annoying, that.

Please review!

HolyChicken


	2. Chapter 2

2. A different routine

Kakashi carefully made sure that nothing was broken. Sighing, he began the new training. He couldn't exactly preach about teamwork without a team, now could he?

"So, Sakura-chan, how much do you think you've changed since the chuunin exams?" He asked, taking out his beloved book and carefully, reverently opening it at the first page.

But instead of an answer, He only received a punch aimed strait at his face. However, a well placed kick shoved Sakura right back to the bridge. Smirking, Sakura straightened her back. "Does that answer your question sensei?"

"Yup, I suddenly managed to gain an actions=speech in Sakura language translator installed into my head." He replied dryly.

However, Sakura didn't get an opportunity to react before a nice, big rock came flying her way. Screeching, she dived to her right, flipping over the edge of the bridge and latching on onto the bottom. "Sensei!"

And then came a wonderful hail of kunai and shuriken, which made her dive into the water; but there was no end to that either. He appeared with a poof of smoke above her, and he grasped her shoulder and tugged her to the surface before throwing her to the shore like some type of rag doll.

Sputtering, she hacked up what seemed to be a good liter of water, furiously rubbing at her tingling eyes. But then, without warning, she opened her eyes and was looking up to his face, which seemed to have gotten a tad more darker, even with his crinkled eye smile thing that he did. "Never, ever trust anyone!" He said in a sing-song voice. Then he turned the page of his book, before getting to his feet and walking away, whistling a jaunty little tune.

Sakura stared fathomlessly at his retreating back, the dirt of the river that stained her dress not even entering her mind.

Kakashi supposed that was a small improvement.

Stopping for a moment, he peered over his shoulder. "So, are you coming or not?"

Sakura blinked for a second, before wobbly getting to her feet, her mind curiously blank. Kakashi's eyes crinkled for a second, before he walked off towards the middle of the training grounds.

For some reason, her thoughts were crystal clear; no overly long sentences clouded her mind, only quick, sharp acknowledgements of what she could see. She could hear every crunch of dirt beneath their feet, the sting of air against her soaked skin. Her pulse was racing, making her breath a bit shorter, and her hands shook slightly.

'So this,' she thought, 'is what true adrenaline feels like.'

She idly wondered why she had never really felt it.

They stopped right in the middle of the clearing in the middle of the training grounds, directly by the memorial stone and those annoying, everlasting three logs. Kakashi, for once, put his book back into its pouch and turned to face her. His face was curiously blank, not even a trace of humor in his dark eye. With a sure hand he lifted his hitae-ate, revealing the Sharingan. The three tomoe swirled lazily, as if she wasn't worth their time. "Now lets see how much you've improved." He said, his voice a complete monotone and his stance shifted slightly, assuming a simple taijutsu form.

Sakura realized that she was truly, utterly screwed.

He didn't give her a chance to react; immediately, his foot tried to knock her off her feet; she evaded, biting her tongue to avoid screaming from shock, and as his fist neared, she shakily performed the seals for a Kawamari.

Poofing into existence twenty feet away in a tree, she noticed that her Sensei was gone, not even a poof of smoke left.

All thoughts stopped for a moment. He was gone, and wasn't it a bit…too…quiet…

"Boo."

This time, she did scream.

Plummeting from the tree, she shakily landed on her back and rolled to avoid the shuriken that followed. Looking up, he hadn't moved. But his face was different. Instead of the blankness –_oh my god that was scary_- the usually eye crinkle was back. His hand was already twitching, as if longing to reach for his orange book and he covered his Sharingan –_that condensing, patronizing Sharingan_- once again. "Really, Sakura-chan, you might break my eardrums someday!" he teased, shaking his head with sadness.

Releasing a small, shaky breath, his words finally clicked and a tiny plan entered her mind. Inner Sakura cackled for a moment as she gave she released a long, shaky breath and fell to her knees, near the shuriken embedded in the ground. Keeping her eyes wide eyed, she carefully kept them to the ground. Sakura dearly hoped she was playing a 'shocked' person well enough, and it seemed to be working.

His voice was hesitant. He clearly remembered yesterday. "Sakura?" He called, getting down from the tree and stopping before her. In a motion she hoped looked natural, her hand inched towards one of the shuriken and with a hard yank she pulled it from the ground, pulling dirt clumps with her, and threw it towards him, before quickly poofing away. Immediately when she regained function of her limbs, she made three bunshin and let them appear at different places, before poofing away, towards one of the higher trees.

From there, she had a birds eye view from everything. Kakashi was idly twirling the shuriken on his finger, glancing around the clearing before he reached into his pouch and took out his book. That annoying, infernal book.

Oh, how she wished to burn it and its blatant orangeness…Ignoring her racing heart, she settled down against the trunk and began to think.

Thirty minutes, multiple Kunai, screeches and bruises later, Sakura finally gave up and allowed herself to collapse into a boneless heap.

Nearby, she heard a small sound as Kakashi landed on the grass nearby, but she ignored him and kept her face firmly pressed down. She mentally took back anything she might have ever said about him being a laid-back teacher. He was a pure slave driver.

His shadow took away any sunlight that might have reached her back as she lay face down in the dirt. "Really, Sakura, that's all?" He said as he poked her in the side.

Sakura would never admit that her racing heart seemed to shudder for a second as it seemed to drop into her stomach. Had she really improved so little…?

However, Kakashi continued without pause and she would hear the rustling of pages as he closed his book. "…But you have improved!"

She could almost _hear_ that eye-smile of his.

And so, she smiled slightly to herself and got to her feet. Maybe she wouldn't be left behind after all…

A/N: This took waaayy too long. Can you believe that those last 200 words were the reason for the long wait? Everything else was written long ago, but I couldn't make myself post a chapter with less than a 1000 words…So I forced out those last few paragraphs while clenching my eyes closed and forcing myself to type.

And as I'm kind of lost right now, I'll give you guys a chance at getting the next chapter dedicated to them and a future scene of their choice! (As long as it doesn't interfere with my Plot or is just too nasty to contemplate…)

So, you're all welcome to write down what you think should be the next few scenes; For example, Sakura thinks about what she should improve, Kakashi ends up on a mission and she's stuck with someone else for a while, ect. If said idea spurs a Plot bunny in me and/or is just too awesome to ignore, you win!

And once again, sorry for the looong wait…

HolyChicken


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